A 22-year-old man was arrested for a fatal stabbing that happened in the port city of Rotterdam that left one person dead and another seriously injured. Dutch prosecutors said the man is suspected of murder and attempted murder with a terrorist motive.
Dutch prosecutors say man arrested after fatal stabbing is suspected of a terrorist motive#Dutch #Motive https://t.co/BEbEdLfHf6 pic.twitter.com/wqgt3BwHaL
— New Delhi Times (@NewDelhiTimes) September 22, 2024
The deadly attack in the Netherlands’s second-biggest city came just weeks after neighboring Germany suffered a similar knife attack late last August, which left three dead and eight wounded. The Islamic State took responsibility for the attack without providing much evidence.
The latest incident, which occurred on the night of September 19th, left a 32-year-old man from Rotterdam dead and a 33-year-old man from Switzerland severely wounded. The suspect began his attack in a parking garage under the city’s Erasmus Bridge, where he attacked the first victim. He then moved up to street level, where the fatal attack occurred. According to authorities, the attacks appear to be random.
The 32-year-old victim was identified as Philipp Winter, a German man originally from Hamburg who moved to Rotterdam six months earlier to pursue his dream. Winter was skating on the bridge when the assailant killed him.
jewish plant
— boz (@boz_121) September 21, 2024
The 33-year-old Swiss national wounded in the attack left the hospital after being treated. The prosecutors did not elaborate further on his injuries.
The Rotterdam Public Prosecution Service said investigations into the suspect uncovered “indications that the suspect may be ideologically driven. For example, the suspect shouted Allahu akbar a number of times during the commission of the crimes.” Allahu Akbar means “God is great” in Arabic.
But they also stressed that the investigation is “still in full swing and that other motives are also explicitly not ruled out.”
A sports instructor and personal trainer, Reniël Renato David Litecia, helped stop the assailant while others threw chairs at him.
Capture of Rotterdam knife attacker on Thursday: A personal trainer knocked the suspect unconscious with a squat stick that he had broken in two, and other bystanders threw chairs at him. pic.twitter.com/pUgFkdXO32
— TrialedTruth (@TrialedTruth) September 22, 2024
Litecia said he thought a fight broke out near the Erasmus Bridge, but he later realized that “it wasn’t a fight” when he started running in the man’s direction.
“It was a man with two long knives who was stabbing another young guy, and when I started shouting, he turned around and started approaching everyone who was around him,” Litecia said.
Prosecutors said the suspect, identified as Ayoub M., has previous convictions for other violent crimes, including one where he violently attacked his mother two and a half years ago in Nijkerk, Gelderland, leaving her with serious injuries on her neck and hands.
yep, someone was yelling 'Allahu Akbar' and they are still not sure if it was terrorism. Sounds like a UN reporting.
— Eli Dror (@edrormba) September 20, 2024
The assailant, who lives in Amersfoort, a city about 80 kilometers away from Rotterdam, also trashed a police station and assaulted a civilian law enforcement officer just days before he stabbed his mother. A court reportedly ordered him to undergo medical treatment, but the details are not known.
The Dutch government’s terror threat level is set at four out of a possible five, meaning that “there is a realistic possibility that an attack will take place in the Netherlands.”
